Nickelodeon movie theater

The nickelodeon was the first type of indoor space dedicated to showing projected motion pictures in the United States. Usually set up in converted stores, these small, simple theaters charged five cents for admission and thrived from about 1905 to 1915.

"Nickelodeon" got its name from the nickel, the name of the U.S. five-cent coin, and the ancient Greek word odeion, which is a roofed-over theater.

Nickelodeon Movie Theater Media

• 

  A nickelodeon theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, c. 1910. Nickelodeons often used gaudy posters and ornamented facades to attract *patrons, but bare walls and hard seats usually awaited within.

• 

  The Auditorium Theatre in 1910 at Toronto, Ontario, later renamed The Avenuee Theatre in 1913 and The Mary Pickford Theatre in 1915